Summary:

To ensure that the EU's legal instruments have the intended effect, the Commission adopted a Notice on Access to Justice in environmental matters on 28 April 2017 (C(2017)2616).

The initiative responds to the 7th Environment Action Programme's objective to improve the implementation of EU environmental law, fostering an effective judicial protection at national level in environmental matters when implementing EU law while ensuring that national provisions on access to justice reflect the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Access to justice guarantees that individuals and environmental associations, under certain conditions, can have an independent national court examine whether a public authority acted lawfully in making a decision, act or omission affecting their rights. The principle guarantees consist of the right to be heard, a sufficient scrutiny by the national judge, measures to put matters right and measures to avoid prohibitive costs.

The interpretative document is based on access to justice provisions in EU secondary environmental law and provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (The Aarhus Convention), as interpreted by the EU Court of Justice. The scope of the guidance document is limited to access to justice in relation to decisions, acts and omissions by public authorities of the Member States. It does not address environmental litigation between private parties. Nor does it concern the judicial review of acts of the EU institutions.

The Notice mentions 38 rulings of the Court of Justice delivered between 1991 and 2016. There have been a number of follow-up actions since the Notice appeared:

- As a stream of further rulings on access to justice in environmental matters has continued to appear since adoption of the Notice, in 2018 and 2019, the Commission services presented to Member States a concept for updating them on such new rulings through tables, which do not interpret but simply record the rulings. The documents drafted are available on DG Environment website.

- In 2018 a Citizen's Guide in a Frequently Asked Questions format was elaborated to provide a summary of the main findings of the Notice.

- Under an assessment framework developed as part of the environmental compliance assurance action plan adopted by the Commission in January 2018, the Commission presented information on access to justice in each Member State in July 2019. Summary information was also included in the 2019 Environmental Implementation Review.

The Commission is considering to update the Notice with case-law developments based on CJEU rulings between 2017-2023.